Samsung was quick to roll out theAugust 2023 security updatefor theGalaxy S23 seriesright at the beginning of the month. Despite being a monthly security patch and the company’s accompanying release notes suggesting no major improvements, the update weighed a hefty 1.4GB. Now, Samsung’s Korean arm haspublished the official change logof the latest Galaxy S23 firmware, which contains a lot more changes than initially anticipated.
Firstly, the August update introduces a 2x zoom option in Photo and Video mode across the entire Galaxy S23 series. This feature uses in-sensor crop to deliver better image quality, a trick used by theGoogle Pixel 7 Proas well. You’ll need to install the latest Camera Assistant to enable the 2x zoom option though. It comes a couple of months afterSamsung added a 2x zoom for portrait modeto its 2023 flagship. Additionally, you can now use 2x zoom when recording videos in Super Steady mode on theGalaxy S23 Ultra.
Secondly, Samsung’s official change log mentions a reduction in motion blur when capturing moving subjects. This has been a longstanding issue with the company’s phones, and it remains to be seen if the August 2023 firmware fixes the problem for good. The third notable change is the optimized camera app’s performance when using various features in Photo/Video mode.
For Galaxy S23 andS23+users, the good news is that the update claims to reduce the blurringcaused by the bananagate issue. Samsung also claims to bump the frame rate from 24fps to 30fps when shooting videos in Portrait mode with Big Circle, Color Point, or Glitch effects. Other changes mentioned include optimized file size of motion photos and a new AI deep learning technology for digital zoom to improve image quality. This same algorithm is used on theGalaxy Z Fold 5and Flip 5.
Overall, the August 2023 update for the Galaxy S23 series is a lot bigger than what Samsung’s initial change log suggested. This is the third camera-focused update for the phone since its release, and it should hopefully resolve all the issues that have limited its camera performance so far.
